Hello, this is Carl Raymond, the host of the Gilded Gentleman History podcast, where every two weeks we delve into worlds light and dark of America's

Gilded Age, France's Belle-Puck, and England's late Victorian and Edwardian eras.

When the imposing more than life-sized statue of Admiral David Farragut was unveiled in 1881

in New York's then fashionable Madison Square

Park, park goers and visitors saw something they had never quite seen before. At over six feet

tall, yes, this grand monument commemorated the Union Admiral David Farragut famous for his

battle cry,

damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

But they saw something even more important.

Those who came to view it saw the work of a new and visionary sculptor just emerging on the scene,

and that was Augustus St. Goddons.

Augustus St. Goddens was perhaps the artist to define a sculptural style for 19th century

America with a naturalness and a realism with which he portrayed his subjects.

Seeing a St. Godin's work was almost like seeing the subject in life rising before you.

In this episode of the Gilded gentlemen, I am deeply honored to be joined by one of the

country's leading specialists in the work of Augustus St. Goddons, Thayer Tolls, author,

historian, and curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art here in New York.

We are going to delve deeply into St. Godd's work and life to see how, in so many ways,

he was a sculptor not only for the Gilded Age, but a sculptor and artist that helped define

a modern America.

Thayer Tolls is the Maritzza F. Vilchek curator of American paintings and sculpture at New York's

Metropolitan Museum of Art.

...